The Lone Gunmen: Your Title Here
by Shane McHennal
Summary: The Gunmen get a visitor who fills them in on a new conspiracy that could have much farther-reaching effects than any of them realize. And oh, yeah, Langly gets a girl. *Maniacal laugh*
1. Unexpected Guest

The Lone Gunmen: Your Title Here   
  
(That's a fancy way of saying I'm too lazy to think of a good one.)  
  
By "Shane McHennal"  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters (except Shane*, of course). I am making no money (that I know of) by writing this story. It is solely for my own enjoyment, and just to say I did. The Lone Gunmen and the X-Files belong to FOX, 1013, and Chris Carter, and they always will. May the hair on their toes never fall out. So please don't sue me. Please?  
  
Summary: The Gunmen get a visitor who fills them in on a new conspiracy that could have much farther-reaching effects than any of them realize. And oh, yeah, Langly gets a girl. *Maniacal laugh*  
  
*Note: The name "Shane McHennal" is an anagram of my real name. I use both for my pen name on fanfiction.net and the character name in this story.  
  
Prologue  
  
March 14th, 1995  
  
On a cool spring morning, a dark blue SUV made its way down a peaceful suburban road. Its destination lay half a mile away, but for the vehicle's driver, the journey's end could not come soon enough.   
  
Inside the car, the driver glanced anxiously at her passenger. Though lined with age, her face was still quite pretty, and the resemblance to her young companion was unmistakable. Softly, the older woman said, "I don't want you to be scared, honey."   
  
"Why would I be scared, Mom?" her daughter asked solemnly as she gazed out the window.  
  
Her mother shrugged slightly. "Lots of kids are scared when they get vaccinated. My company's doing this, so you have nothing to be scared of."  
  
"I know." Then, "Mom?"  
  
"Yes, Shane?"  
  
"I thought your company makes processors."  
  
The other set her jaw grimly. "They do."  
  
-1-  
  
March 16th, 2001  
  
Melvin Frohike wiped a putrid mix of rainwater, sweat and grime from his forehead as he and his companions entered the main office of The Lone Gunmen. Behind him, Langly cleaned his glasses and complained, "That is the last time I go digging through a Dumpster for floppy disks!"  
  
Byers answered, "Hopefully, it's the last time we'll have to. At least we found something."  
  
"Yeah, and I'll bet you anything it's someone's chat transcripts from the 'Secrets of Star Wars: Episode II' room." Frohike fished the bagged disks from his jacket pocket and pried the cover off one with his pocketknife. He then proceeded to take an empty cover and put the plastic circle from the trashed disk inside. Once the repaired disk was complete, he fed it into the drive.   
  
After a few command lines, a logo appeared onscreen: Lewis & Nash, Attorneys at Law. "Well, at least there's something there," Frohike murmured. Byers and Langly peered over his shoulder at the screen. A login prompt appeared over the logo, and Melvin stepped aside to let Langly take over.  
  
After several minutes of typing, the younger man shook his head. "Whatever is hidden on this disk, it's hidden well. I can't get past their firewall."  
  
Byers sighed. "So much for that." The doorbell buzzed.  
  
Frohike checked the monitor by the door; a short, soaked figure waited in the stairwell outside. "Guys," he said softly, "anyone order pizza?"   
The other two Gunmen glanced at the screen. "Nobody I know," Langly said softly. Byers studied the figure, then nodded toward the door.  
  
"Might as well open it."  
  
Frohike unlocked the heavy door and opened it a few inches. As he did, the figure looked up, and her face came into view. It was a young woman, just out of her teens, and her face bore an expression of desperation.  
  
As they stared, she spoke, voice strained. "You don't know me," she said, "but I need your help."  
  



	2. The Plot Thickens

The Lone Gunmen: Your Title Here  
  
*Gasp* It's Chapter 2! Yea! Thanks to everyone who reviewed Chapter 1, I hope you enjoy the next addition. As usual, I don't own these characters, except for Shane. This story is based off characters and situations created by George Lucas... waitaminute, wrong fic. Chris Carter owns it all. May the Force be with him.  
  
-2-  
  
Shane sipped the mug of hot tea that Byers had brought her and glanced up at the three men. "It happened when I was fifteen," she said softly. "My high school was the testing ground; my mother's company, Digital Horizons, sponsored a vaccination there. It was supposed to be a flu vaccine, or some normal front like that. But what they really did was inject a group of kids with a microscopic GPS chip. It's called Cyber Guardian. It monitored heart rate, blood pressure, and could transmit the location of the subject, no matter where they were."  
  
For a moment there was silence. At last Byers asked, "How did you figure this out?"  
  
"I walked in on my mom while she was running a program on her laptop, and before she shut it off, I saw a readout listing all the places I'd been over the week. I didn't talk to her about it, but when she was gone, I hacked her computer and found all the information she had. When I was sixteen, I dropped out of school legally, packed my stuff, and ran away. Then," she went on as she rolled up her right sleeve, "I had the chip surgically removed." Just above the elbow, an inch-long scar could be seen, old but still very present. "Probably not the most sanitary way to do it, but I couldn't risk going to a reputable doctor."  
  
Frohike grimaced. "And there are others whom this happened to?"   
  
The girl nodded. "About a hundred kids my age were injected. Maybe more. I don't think any of them know about it. I didn't tell anyone, for fear that they'd turn me in. With my mother in the company and my father working for the government, there was no telling what could happen. So I left. I faked some ID and got a temporary job at a bike shop, doing repair. In effect, I became a fugitive. I know my parents are still looking for me. I don't think they'll ever stop. I'm important. If news of this got out... it'd look extremely bad for the company. That's why I came to you." She pulled a creased copy of The Lone Gunmen newspaper from her backpack. "I hoped you could run a story on the conspiracy. If you could reach an audience, word would spread."  
  
The Gunmen exchanged a glance. "We need evidence to run a story," Langly told her.  
  
Shane reached into the front pocket of her backpack and retrieved a plastic container, the kind vending machine toys came in. She handed it to Langly, and he brought it over to a microscope hooked up to a computer monitor. As he magnified the view, a tiny computer chip appeared in vivid detail onscreen. All three Gunmen crowded around the screen for a look.   
  
"And there's more," Shane said. As one, Byers, Langly, and Frohike turned to eye her. She continued, "Digital Horizons is holding a gala event this month for the official unveiling of Cyber Guardian. They're marketing it as the latest tool in medical care, but if we can prove they have other plans..." She let the sentence hang unfinished.  
  
Byers shot another glance at the magnified chip onscreen, then at his companions. After a moment he turned back to Shane. "Okay," he said, "we'll do it."  
  
The girl smiled. 


End file.
